German policeman suspended over Gypsy slur

4 November 2005

BERLIN - A German police officer was suspended and facing disciplinary action Thursday after publishing a text saying Gypsies in Germany were living like parasites, officials said.

"Gypsies have explained to us that one feels like a 'maggot in fat' in Germany's wealthy society," the text in "Der Kriminalist", a magazine of the Federation of Criminal Police said, using a German metaphor for somebody who has a comfortable life without effort.

The article said that Gypsies in Germany were responsible for far more crime than other citizens, but they felt justified when stealing or illegally taking social welfare payments because of their persecution under the Nazi Third Reich.

Historians say that between 90,000 and 219,000 Gypsies were murdered by the Nazis."Is it really prejudice when citizens complain that Gypsies drive to the social welfare offices in a Mercedes?" asked the police author.

The Central Council of German Gypsies and Roma slammed the article as "race-baiting."

In reply the Bavarian state interior ministry issued a statement saying the officer who wrote the article had been suspended and that state prosecutors were looking into the case.

"A general criminalizing of a single part of the population, as here with the Gypsies and Roma, is totally unacceptable," said the statement.

DPA

EDITORIAL COMMENT:Well, let's not speak of the real figure, ever. The one that was put forward from the Frankfurter Fachhochschule some years ago and which states, and this is a figure that is being widely accepted now, of 1.5 million Sinti and Roma and Jenische; so why, yet again, the numbers game of making the suffering of the Gypsy People appear less? As to the police officer's comments: why is anyone surprised about such? Germany has never changed, only on the face of it. There to this day, even though it is being vehemently denied, the police keeps records on all Gypsies in the country, in the same manner as was done in Bavaria, and that not until so long ago publicly, in the "Police Office to Combat the Gypsy Menace". The same collection of records still exists. The only difference is that now it has gone underground and publicly the existence is being denied.